Three University of Colorado at Colorado Springs Advanced GIS students, Josh Hendrickson, Sherissa Buck and Brandon Zimmerman, recently completed a class project that located three Colorado Springs areas of focus in relations to food deserts. The students identifies areas where more than 20% of the households have an annual income of less than $25,000 and are located more than a mile from a grocery store with presumed access to affordable and nutritious foods:

East of downtown Colorado Springs

Southeast Colorado Springs, near the Colorado Springs Airport

The area surrounding the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs

The purpose of the study was to inform local service providers for the most effective use of resources. The students noted that increasing healthy food assistance programs, home gardening education, building community gardens or attracting grocery stores to serve these areas would add food security to some of the most vulnerable areas of Colorado Springs. One of the students, Hendrickson, feels this study is just the beginning and hopes to focus his thesis research exploring connections between public transportation, socio-economic data and other calculation methods.